1 character sentences: Sokka
by braidsinherhair
Summary: Theme set alpha. Unfinished, sometimes with multiple sentences for a theme I have this problem with decisions... I would really appreciate input and constuctive criticism. I pair Sokka with pretty much everyone at least once, if it matters.


Hey there! This here is what I'm going to submit to 1character, an lj community.

I'm posting this here, unfinished, because I am really hoping for some constructive criticism. So if you see something you like, don't like, whatever, or you have a preference for one sentence when I've got two for one theme, please feel free to let me know what and, most importantly, why.

I have this problem - I think I've paired him with everyone at least once. Including his sister.

I am possibly going to hell.

Also, doing this kind of thing breeds plot bunnies like no one's business.

This is what I have so far - may I be forgiven for impossibly convoluted sentences, butchered grammar, and a civil union with the semi-colon.

* * *

**#01 - speak**

When she was thwarted as a small child, Katara would give their parents the silent treatment for days, and it fell to Sokka to translate the fluttering gestures that communicated her will.

**#02 - touch**  
All he can think for a second is, "_Toph_?!" and then he thinks he understands how she can see without sight; her breath thrums over his mouth and he knows exactly where she is, even with his eyes closed.

**#03 - memory**  
In the back of the thrift shop he finds a bit of narwhal ivory, half carved in the beginnings of what looks like a polar dolphinbear, and he see his father's hands as he first taught Sokka to whittle.

**#04 - vanilla**  
The children in town had invented a game with the empty seed pods that involved a good deal of throwing and kicking and falling down; the smell fills the air and Sokka can't remember being this content in a long time.

**#05 - chocolate**  
"Wait, this place has _thirty-one flavors?_"

**#06 - ways and means**  
Everyone else just seemed to give up when Ty Lee took away their magic; it made Sokka almost grateful that he'd never had the gift - he'd learned to think from different angles.

**#07 - belief**  
Sokka thinks about the whole idea, of cycles and reincarnation, and wonders if he'll ever just get a chance to rest and be with the people he loves, the ones living and dead and the ones staring at him from the southern sky - what happens when a soul gets _tired_?

**#8 - linger**  
He couldn't help it if he still hadn't stopped missing her; the reminder shone in the sky every night.

**#9 - illuminance**  
In the cold night air, beneath her silvery light, he realizes that no matter how much he plays and pretends, he is still a one woman man.

**#10 - ornament**  
"It- It matches your eyes - do you like it?" he asks nervously; she smiles at him, and he can't stop blushing.

**#11 - **_**coup de foudre**_  
"Her name is Katara," says his mother, her face all tired and sweaty and _glowing_, "and it will be your job to keep her safe."

**#12 - archway**  
earthbenders get construction done _fast_  
He listens avidly as the engineer explains why the pointy doorway can bear more weight than a square one; a week later Zuko's palace is thirty feet taller than impossibly high with plans for stained glass patterned with leaping flames and still all anyone can talk about is why Sokka would want to name them "buttresses," of all things - Katara hits the nail on the head when she accuses him of wanting to make every single pinch-faced architect say "butt" on a regular basis.

**#13 - fate**  
Sometimes Sokka wonders what sort of cosmic joke put him in the position where he is always trying to protect people who end up protecting him.

**#14 - pulse**  
Sokka checked her neck the way Grangran had taught him, but Mommy wasn't breathing and she wasn't waking up and her heart wasn't beating and Katara was crying and he had to get them somewhere somewhere safe fast because he didn't even know how to use his knife yet and he had to _hide_ because that was the only way to keep her safe had to run had torunhadtorunhadtohidehidehidehide--

**#17 – need**  
He rolled over and started to get up; she grabbed his arm, "Please, don't go yet," and every motion felt like a lie, but it wasn't _about_ him and so he stayed anyway.

**#18 - drunk**  
Katara does that thing where she smiles and glares at the same time, and for just a second he thinks that maybe he wishes that she wasn't his sister; later he blames it on the cactus juice.

**#19 – mask**  
Sokka had no faith in in the art of fortune telling, but fortune _tellers_ were often adept judges of character; Aunt Wu looked at him sharply once he was out of earshot of the others and all she asked him was, "Why do you hide behind buffoonery?" and even though he affected affront at her choice of words and left, the question followed him for years.

**#20 – rose**  
"I can't wear that because it's pink and unmanly and all the other hunters will laugh at me," he said, but she looked at him with brimming eyes and figured he could live with it.

**#21 – two**  
She was pale where he was dark and looking at their skin together made him think of all that mystical balance crap, and that's when he knew that they belonged together – even the stupid yin yang agreed.  
or  
He paled, and squeaked, "_Twins_?"

**#22 - fresh**  
"It was meant as a compliment," he said, earning himself another slap.

**#24 - error** (this doesn't have so much to do with Sokka's development as it does with plot! But I _like_ it...)  
He'd somehow gotten the idea that once Aang mastered all his jumblywhatsamabob, he'd divert the comet, defeat the Fire Nation, save the world, and Sokka could finally go home; it turned out keeping peace was even more difficult than making war and required about as much travel, and between the whole Son of Hakoda of the Southern Tribes thing and the Engineer's Liasion thing and the Hero of the Avatar's War thing, Sokka wasn't going to be able to go home for the rest of his life - he didn't even know where home _was_ anymore.  
or (more Sokka, less plot-y)  
When she said, "Oh, Sokka... Kyoshi warriors can't _get_ married," and he felt nothing more than mild regret, he knew that he might be looking at the whole idea for the wrong reasons.

**#26 - refrain**  
It always came back to flying around on Appa; Sokka was fairly sure that he'd grown three inches sitting on the back of that bison, and it made him wonder what else a bout him had changed over a bare summer.

**#27 - family**  
Sokka looks around the campfire and realizes that he would kill to protect every single one of them.

**#28 - grieve**  
He still refuses to kiss his wife where the moon can see; it seems... disrespectful, somehow.

**#30 - tea**  
Sokka peers at the smiling old man as he noisily slurps his tea, ignoring his sister's glares at his apparent ill-breeding, and is reminded of banked coals - calm and meditative, but burning perhaps even hotter than a flame.

**#31 - medicine**  
He never did look at frogs the same way after that.

**#32 - moth**  
He looks at his pretty little sister and the way she flutters almost unwillingly toward the burning prince, and all he can do is pray that she is not consumed in a cloud of brightly colored steam - and promise to kick the stuffing out of the stupid kid if he made Katara cry, of course.

**#36 - crossroads**  
"So, Water Tribe, will you shake my hand or not?" And for a second, Sokka really could not decide.

**#39 - photograph**  
He held the portrait of his new niece in his hands and said, "Gods above, that little thing is supposed to be the new Aang?"

**#40 - spoon**  
In the weeks after their mother died, while Father was away on his long hunting trip, Katara would climb into his sleeping furs, and he would curl around her, pretending that he didn't need the comfort as much as she did.

**#42 - mirror**  
He always found it reassuring that he and Katara were so often mistaken for twins; no matter how far they drifted, he could always look at her and see his own skin, his own hair, his own eyes, softer and girlier but still a link.  
or  
He looks at the angry, tired, _scared_ prince, displaced from his home nad confronted with total upset in The Way Things Are Supposed To Be, all wounded pride and an overly talented sister and the way he never seems to be quite enough to do what he feels he has to do, and thinks that maybe he can sort of begin to understand, just a little.

**#43 - smoke**  
He saw it billowing in thick columns from over the hill where a town should have been, and thought they'd maybe be doing more digging than sleeping that night.

**#45 - balloon**  
He saw it floating out over the battlefield, dropping fire and naphtha on unwitting Earth kingdom troops and thinks that for all the people benders have managed to kill, it wasn't their _idea_ that was tuning the tide of the battle against them. (I need help with this wording.)

**#47 - butterfly**  
He looked at the girls, all brightly colored and fluttering their fans, and knew that he could not settle for beauty without substance; "Sorry," he murmured to the proprietress, and walked out the door.

**#49 - venom**  
"I'm glad that her own lightning is what killed her," says Katara, and all Sokka can do is stare at the tone of his sweet baby sister's voice.

**#50 - remain**  
He looks at his sister, grieving the loss of her best friend-who-could-have-been-more-someday-once-he-hit-puberty, and thinks that maybe the hardest thing to do is just stay behind and keep on living.


End file.
